Chicago Lifestyle Podcast & Video Blog
Chicago was a major influence during the silent film era producing movies with huge stars like Charlie Chaplin, Edna Mayo, and Max Linder, and the Uptown and Edgewater neighborhoods were the very epicenters. Essanay Studios was located at 1333-45 W. Argyle Street (just east of Clark Street) …
This version of “A Bronx Tale” based on an off-Broadway one-man play by Chazz Palmintiri and later turned into the popular 1993 Robert De Niro movie of the same name has added music by Alan Menken and Lyrics by Glenn Slater to produce a very …
Review Summary: “The Choir of Man” at the Broadway Playhouse at Chicago’s Water Tower Place mall on Michigan Avenue is more boy band concert than Broadway musical. Featuring nine very energetic, vocally talented, male singers purported to be “regulars” at a traditional Irish Pub named “The Jungle,” that serves up 90 minutes of pop.
It is basically about 15 or so cover tunes written, recorded or popularized by Adele, Queen, Paul Simon, Katy Perry, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and others that everyone will find enjoyable and most will find familiar.
The musical extravaganza is loosely narrated by Denis Grindel who introduces his pub mates providing a bit of backstory about each as a way of establishing the iconic stereotypical characters we have probably encountered in every tavern and public house in the world.
Read the entire review at ChicagoTheaterandArts.com
Jodie Jacobs of ChicagoTheaterandArts.com and Reno Lovison of ChicagoBroadcastingNetwork.com got together to produce a podcast about the plays they reviewed in 2018. Including those plays they found to be intelligent and thought-provoking as well as those that were just fun and entertaining.
Bob (H.B. Ward) and Jennifer (Linda Reiter) Jones are surprised to meet their new neighbors, Pony (Cortney McKenna), and John ( Joseph Wiens) who also share the same last name. The two couples have an ongoing series of absurd conversations that actually do get to …
Chicago is home to approximately 150,000 individuals who identify as Asian. This February was the beginning of the Lunar New Year hailed as The Year of the Pig according to the Chinese Zodiac.
According to TheChineseZodiac.org, this is a great year to make money, and a good year to invest! 2019 is going to be full of joy, a year of friendship and love for all the zodiac signs; an auspicious year because the Pig attracts success in all the spheres of life.
The Chinatown neighborhood in Chicago is centered on Cermak and Wentworth Avenues, and is an example of one of the city’s many ethnic neighborhoods and is probably the most well known Asian ethnic community.
A section in Uptown on the northside near Argyle and Broadway is sometimes referred to as New Chinatown or the northside Chinatown. But this is something of a misnomer since the majority of Asians in this area are from South-East Asia, hence it is also known as Little Vietnam.
On February 9, 2019 the community celebrated the beginning of the Lunar New Year with a parade and parties.
Below is a video of highlights from The Lunar New Year Celebration at Furama Restaurant attended by about 300 people, including a number of political dignitaries, and hosted by the South-East Asia Center a not-for-profit organization that offers a number of programs for area children and seniors including a preschool, daycare, afterschool program, senior daycare, ESL Classes, and Golden Diners Program, as well as a number of social service assistance programs.
Until now I have generally dedicated one podcast to one review. In this episode, I thought I would do something a little different and talk about two plays I recently reviewed for ChicagoTheaterandArts.com. The first is “Dead Man’s Cell Phone” at the Greenhouse Theatre Center …
Until recently Rosalind Franklin had gone virtually un-credited for her contribution to the discovery revealing the structure of DNA to be a double helix. The discovery ultimately earned Franklin’s research colleague Maurice Wilkins and two rival collaborators James Watson and Francis Crick the Nobel Prize. “Photograph …
The Lyric Opera of Chicago is presenting an encore series through January 31, 2019 of its attractively updated version of Giacomo Puccini’s “La Boheme” directed by Richard Jones which launched the 2018/2019 season accompanied by the very capable Lyric Orchestra under the direction of Domingo Hindoyan.
Listen to our original production audio review here, at Spotify, iTunes or GooglePlay or read the review at ChicagoTheaterandArts.com.
The world premiere of “La Ruta” at the Steppenwolf Theater, Chicago by playwright Isaac Gomez has figuratively commandeered a bus transporting “maquila” workers to and from their jobs in Juarez, pointing its headlights into the vast darkness to expose the despair and anguish of the …
We like to emphasize events and activities actually within the city limits but Music Theater Works in Evanston at the Cahn Auditorium is just outside Chicago on the northside and steps from the Northwestern campus. Running through December 31, 2018. The company formerly known as …
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” puts a contemporary twist to an old favorite at Chicago Shakespeare Theater on Chicago’s Navy Pier through January 27, 2019. Call the Box Office 312-595-5600 or visit Chicagoshakes.com for ticket information.
Update Note: Though the Reader, Tribune, and WTTW reviews all rated this production as “Somewhat Recommend” I went with “Highly Recommend” for much the same reason. Where they kinda felt it was over-the-top I felt that the extravagance is what made it fun and perhaps appealing to a more general audience.
This is clearly not an academic or traditionally faithful version of the story but I felt it may be more approachable for those who may be new to Shakespeare or otherwise be somewhat intimidated.
In the meantime, a more traditional Shakespeare enthusiast might find this approach charming and thought-provoking in an alternative way.
Listen to the podcast here or read the entire review at ChicagoTheaterandArts.com.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
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